EXHIBITION: ‘ILLUMINATE - THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION’
Anglesea art space
10-21 june 2021
Luisa Giuoffre-Suzuki Interview
HG: You have a long history as an illustrator, having illustrated over 35 books and private client work, did you do any formal study?
LGS: I studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in painting at RMIT at the Bundoora campus. I transferred to the Melbourne city campus for my honours for half a year, then had an exchange opportunity in Europe for the second half of the year. I moved into illustration later, the basis of the skills I needed was founded in learning how to draw during the course. Godwin Bradbeer was my lecturer and Head of Drawing, he’s an amazing draftsman and drawer who has since been teaching at The Art Room in Footscray https://the-art-room.com.au/our-teachers/godwin-bradbeer/
HG: What was your style in art school.
LGS: I worked big, very big! I got into fine art quite young (18-19yo), at that time we were directed by the lecturer’s interests. A few of them were very illustration based, even though they created large fine art drawing. There were some conceptual artists but there was more focus on impressionism and expressionism, so it was a bit of a mix.
HG: How did you move into illustration?
LGS: I moved to Japan after finishing study. I found that size had a lot to do with moving into illustration. I was still doing oil paintings and had exhibitions in Japan, but slowly my work got smaller and smaller because the spaces where we exhibited were small. After the kids came along, I needed to be around family and couldn’t escape to a studio. I wondered what I could do to make sure my art practice could keep going, so I found myself sitting at a desk and working with a more story-based creative process. It made it a more thorough work practice and a brief helped with that.
My first illustration contract came from a USA publisher who liked my work and it started from there.
HG: Did having kids spark you interest in storytelling?
LGS: Yes, a little bit. As well as creating art, I also taught art and English as a second language in Japan. Through teaching you have to reprocess how people understand things, both visually and through language, and storytelling was a way to simplify and make it more universal. I was using imagery and colour to cross those boundaries of language, and looking at the idea of visual story books without any text. It’s something I’d still like to move into at some point.
HG: So having illustrated over 35 books, how many have been children’s book?
LGS: Pretty much all of them! Some are trade books, meaning one book at a time. The volume of these have been educational books, where a series of student characters traversed school and home life. I was fortunate to be flown to Singapore to site check and understand the knowledge gaps.
HG: You’re an Illustrators Australia member, has that been helpful to be involved in?
LGS: Yes, I can put my portfolio online for everyone to see if they are looking to commission an illustrator. It may not necessarily be a direct channel to get work but sometimes it’s a really nice way to direct people to the site to see the types of work I do without having to create a whole portfolio every time. Having a website does the same thing but there’s an upkeep to maintain. The Illustrators Australia website is already directed at certain groups of publishers and people working in the trade, so that makes it really helpful for them to find what they are looking for. I’ve got work in an indirect way – I’ve had some interest come through, then there’s been a discussion and reworking of ideas in my portfolio and then of course I start working more specifically with what the client wants.
HG: You talked about painting and how you started out and have contributed a series of acrylic paintings to this exhibition. Have you continued to paint throughout your career, or have you picked it up again?
LGS: All the way through I was painting with oils alongside my illustration, so there was always two streams and sometimes three! The amount of time I needed to work on contracts or developing books, dictated how much I could focus on painting. But I use watercolours and my illustrations and paintings are very loose and free, so I don’t have a strict illustration style. Things I’ve learnt in painting I bring to illustration and things I’ve learnt in illustration come across into the painting. So even though it’s a painting, I’m still creating a story and an atmosphere within that painting. It’s just a different medium.
HG: So it’s doesn’t feel like a different creative process?
LGS: No not really. I just love that painting can be a bigger size, because with illustration there is usually a particular size I have to work to, especially if it’s book illustrations, with a need to leave space for design elements and making sure there isn’t too much text to lose the reader’s interest. All of these elements aren’t consciously thought about when I’m painting, I just go with the atmosphere I want to create and then there’s those unconscious choices I know because I’ve done them so many times before. I can focus on a certain feeling or atmosphere that I want to create.
HG: You mentioned you taught English and art in Japan and you’re currently teaching art in Geelong, how have those experiences different for you?
LGS: The way we talk about anything, how art moves across different mediums and disciplines, how key words are used to try and explain, encourage and nurture people to do what they do, is the same for me.
HG: What do you think you’ve learnt, especially about your own work, through that process of teaching and assessing students?
LGS: Everyone is different and they carry their own story. So you’re not teaching them to change the way they are telling their story, but rather guiding them to tell their story in a clear way that people can understand. It’s a success when a student hits a light bulb moment “oh. I can do it this way!”. That’s one of the positives for me, that satisfaction of seeing another person feeling as though they have found their voice, that’s really awesome.
HG: Does that help you define your own voice, or is it something quite separate?
LGS: Both I think. I see things and it helps me work through my own processes when I get stuck a little bit. I leave my issue with my painting or drawing on the side and as I’m teaching something pops up while I'm helping a student and I have an “ohhhh” moment and it sort of transfers across – I might try it to see if it fixes my issue. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, but it is that holistic approach I guess.
HG: Would you like to create more books?
LGS: Oh yeah, always! (laughter) Books and art!
HG: An opportunity to work on the books without written narratives?
LGS: Yes, definitely.
And as an illustrator, when I have the story I’m not going to imitate what has been said. I’m trying to create a third element in that book. So if the text is ‘a dog has fallen down the steps’, I’m not going to show a dog falling down the steps. The dog might be in a certain position (after it has fallen down the stairs) or have a feeling or emotion on its face. There are different things we can focus on as illustrators.
HG: People often think that illustration is often just about kids books or that its not a ‘serious’ artform, so in what other ways do you see illustration being used effectively to tell a story.
LGS: The boundaries between different artforms has softened a little bit I think. And I really love that.
HG: Yes, thank goodness. Me too.
LGS: I don’t like being pigeon holed, and a lot of artists who work across different styles and mediums often don’t either.
HG: I agree, for a long time I’ve strongly believed there shouldn’t be such a distinction between fine art, illustration, design, craft etc, and there's been a shift with the last couple of generations of creatives, where they are blending ways of working and finding ways to not only exhibit, but to take on different types of commissions and be comfortable with incorporating a retail element like tshirts, zines, ceramics, etc.
LGS: And that’s wonderful! There’s a gallery that has opened in Geelong called the Hue and Cry Collective, an amazing younger generation that are blending everything with more of a pop culture, street level lens, and it’s really accessible. They’re educating others on the language of the work.
And language is important. We’ve had a few visitors come into the exhibition today who have asked about Michelle’s works. I had to explain that they’re not ‘just prints’, that the artist draws and paints digitally with specialist software and gets them professionally printed on beautiful art paper. It doesn’t mean they are any less, it just means this is a different way of working and sharing original art.
> www.illustratorsaustralia.com/portfolios/luisa-gioffre-suzuki
> www.instagram.com/luisagioffresuzuki
LUISA’S BIO
Luisa is a professional illustrator, artist and teacher based in Victoria. After spending over a decade in Japan, her personal style has developed with influences from vibrant Japanese culture, mixed in with art of today, and traces of the coast and ocean where she lives now. She uses inks, watercolour, acrylic, pastel, pen and pencil to create her colourful imagery traditionally and digitally manipulates them. Luisa's style varies but is underpinned by her Fine Art training and love of colour. She has illustrated over 30 books in both the education and trade markets and also creates original works for clients.
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